accelerometer

181 Articles

3D Magnetometer Mouse In Processing

October 18, 2009 by 22 Comments

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[etgalim] works in Solidworks extensively and wanted a more intuitive way of rotating objects onscreen. To do this, he created a mouse that responds to rotation. He put a 3D compass module inside an old mouse and wired it up to an Arduino. The Arduino then relays the I2C sensor data to the computer. So far, he has a Processing script that uses the mouse to rotate a cube, but eventually he wants to write a Solidworks plugin. It’s a bit shaky, and we think it would be a bit smoother (and cheaper) if he used gyros like the jedipad. Video after the jump.

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Head Bangers Beware: Motion Sensing Headphones

September 14, 2009 by 9 Comments

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The iPhone doesn’t have the market cornered on the use of accelerometers. The tiltphone project incorporates a three axis accelerometer into a set of headphones transforming them into a remote control for an iPod. A PIC16F690 reads in data from the analog sensor, translates specific movements into commands, and like the Arduino iPod Remote from last week, relays them to an iPod via the Apple Accessory Protocol. A quick nod left or right skips tracks, holding a sideways nod controls the volume, and setting the headphones down pauses.

This project is a bit older but we’re glad [anon] tipped us off as we hadn’t seen it before. There doesn’t seem to be any code or schematics available but because the Apple Accessory Protocol is known, it’s only a matter of working out how to interpret the sensor data. There is video after the break and if you pull off this hack yourself be sure to send in details for a followup.

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Rocket Acceleration Logger

April 8, 2009 by 17 Comments

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Have you ever wondered how high or how fast a model rocket goes when you launch it? [sprite_tm] did, so he decided to build a low cost, lightweight data logger that he could fit into the nose cone of his rocket. To keep the circuit small, he built it around the popular ATtiny13 microcontroller. The microcontroller collects data from a Freescale MMA7260, a 3-axis accelerometer that he extracted from a third-party Wii nunchuck controller. After the microcontroller collects the data, it’s stored in 32K of EEPROM on a 24C256. All of this is powered by a small 3.6v Li-ion battery, which is the largest part of the circuit. If this sounds like something you’d like to make, he has detailed instructions along with the software used available on his site. While we don’t launch a lot of model rockets here, we may soon start just so that we have an excuse to build this.

Accelerometer Controlled Pong

September 23, 2008 by 8 Comments

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[Perry’s] awesome AcceLED Pong project gives new life to a classic game by adding acceleration-based control. The pong paddles are moved by tilting the circuit left or right. Motion is measured by an ADXL203 dual axis accelerometer, and an ATMEGA32 microcontroller converts acceleration into ball and paddle movement. The game display is a three-color SparkFun 8×8 LED matrix with serial interface.

[Perry] also used a similar setup to make a USB LED spectrum analyzer fed by the Linux XMMS media player.

Punch Your Alarm Clock

August 24, 2007 by 14 Comments


This is probably the most entertaining “application note” I’ve ever seen. These things are usually a bit dry, ok, they make your eyes turn to a previously unknown state of matter. This one involves making your alarm clock snooze when you beat it. The trick? Wire an accelerometer to the snooze button. It takes a bit of supporting circuitry, but looks do-able for anyone worth of their soldering iron. Thanks to [Andy] for sending it in.

Hey, we have a tips line. Send in your hacks!

Wiimote Car Accelerometer

July 28, 2007 by 19 Comments


This one’s pretty simple, but anyone who’s ever spent time tweaking an engine will appreciate it. [Kevin]’s been using a wiimote to measure the acceleration of his car. He put together a script to dump the accelerometer output to a CSV file, then graphed it with Excel. He notes that the accelerometer output isn’t that precise, but it’s good enough to give you feedback on your mods.